


Choose To Accept

by Talithax



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mild Language, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9058255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: ...  Just a small Christmas fic.   Nothing more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Narrated by Ethan. Self-beta'd.
> 
> \- Community Service Announcement -  
> Written on the spur of the moment, and quickly - and after not having finished anything for some time. So... It could probably be better, sorry. (Still, hurrah -- from my perspective anyway -- for finally having finished something.)
> 
> Here's hoping you all had / are having an absolutely fantastic festive season!

==============  
Choose To Accept  
by TalithaX  
==============

 

“Well...” Placing our luggage on the bed closest to the door, I survey the sad, uninspired little motel room and shrug. “At least it's clean and warm,” I offer lamely as, looking too far gone to care one iota about the quality – or not, as the case may be – of his surroundings, Will walks around me and takes a seemingly much needed seat on the edge of the second bed.

“I'd have gone with... red... myself,” he mutters, glancing first at the bed he's sitting on and then across to the one I'm standing, flat-footed and somewhat at a loss as to what to do with myself, in front of. “Look. Plain red covers for both beds. I know this is a budget chain, but you'd think they still could have coughed up for something with a bit of a print on it. But... Whatever. It is what it is and, you're right... At least it's clean and warm.” Sighing, he fumbles over undoing the zip of his heavy winter coat for a few seconds before swearing softly under his breath and shooting me a look made up of equal parts annoyance and embarrassment. “I'm sorry, but do you think...”

“There's nothing to apologise for,” I interrupt as, almost ridiculously pleased to have something to do, I walk over to Will and help him out of his coat. Although I think I'm being both slow and gentle, he still grimaces at my touch and this causes another sigh, this one perhaps a little more heartfelt, to slip past his lips. “Shit! I'm...”

“What you just said about having nothing to apologise for,” Will interrupts a tad breathlessly, “goes both ways. I'm sore. You know it and, hey, oddly enough, I know it too. But... Shit happens, and I'll survive. I've got my painkillers and a roof over my head and, as we both know it could have been a hell of a lot worse, I'm good. Maybe not great, but still good. So... Please. No apologies.”

“Good,” I echo, hiding my own feelings on the – still a little too raw – subject behind a forced smile as I hang his coat in the small built-in closet. “I... I'm glad you're good. Now...” Upping the wattage of the fake-as-fake-can-be smile, I turn around and give a small bow. “Is there perhaps anything else sir might like some assistance with?” 

“While... sir... would very much like to be able to decline your kind offer,” Will replies, giving me a glum look, “shoes, please. I have this fear that if I leant forward at the moment that I may not be able to straighten up again.”

“The painkillers...”

“Are working just fine,” he finishes, flashing me a grateful smile as I kneel down in front of him and reach for his left foot. “Nowhere hurts, I just feel...”

“Off, as my grandmother used to say, with the fairies?”

“Although I was thinking more along the lines of vague, or... numb, as I like your grandmother's description better, I'll go with it. I... I'm with the fairies and, having had just about enough of today, all I want to do is go to bed and pull the covers over my head.” 

“Tomorrow is another day and all that,” I murmur with a shrug as, having succeeded in getting both the shoe and sock off his left foot, I move on to the right. “Uh... Sorry for the borderline patronising platitude. It just slipped out.”

“No apologies, remember,” Will states as he tilts his head back and gazes up at the ceiling. “Besides, you're right. Tomorrow is another day. It's just...” Pausing, he closes his eyes and, as it's well and truly the night for it, sighs softly. “I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to officially give up on it.”

“Give up on... what... exactly?” I prompt, carefully pulling his sock off and placing it for safe keeping in his shoe before standing up and stretching. “Chicago? The Super 8 motel chain? The Godforsaken snow? My rusty-at-best nursing skills? Come on, Will, help me out here by being a little more specific.”

“Your nursing skills are fine, I've never been what you'd call a fan of Super 8, and Chicago can't help its weather.” Opening his eyes, Will slowly, and with no small amount of effort, straightens up and gives me a sad, resigned look. “Christmas. I think it's time I came to my senses and just gave up on Christmas.”

“Oh.” Will's response not being one I ever would have been able to come up with myself, I stare at him blankly and, for one of the very few times in my life, don't quite know what to say. Not being completely blinkered to the world – outside of IMF and whatever my designated mission may be at the time – around me, I knew, of course I did, on some dim level that it was Christmas. The few shops I've had cause to pass through recently have been more crowded with desperate looking shoppers than usual and, okay, fine, the decorations scattered all over the place were also pretty much a dead give away that the festive season was in full swing.

As has been the case for, I'm thinking decades, now, I just didn't have any reason to pay particular attention to it, that's all.

Christmas, it...

It's just another day.

I'm an only child, my parents are long dead, the family farm, the one I grew up on and which I've made my peace with never seeing again, is safe in the hands of a cousin who, unlike me, actually wanted it, having learnt my lesson with Julia I don't have a lover and while, yes, I do have close friends that are now like family to me, I've never stopped working long enough to contemplate taking the time to spend Christmas with them.

So...

It's just how it is.

As much by choice as it is necessity.

“You... You like Christmas?” I murmur as Will, his expression unreadable, peers at me. “I didn't know...”

“You don't?” he queries, cutting me off as his expression changes just enough to let me know that my reaction – or lack of – has actually surprised him.

“It's just not something I think about,” I mutter, walking back over to Will and, without asking if he's even wanting to take it off, reaching for the hem of his sweater. “Don't get me wrong, I was all for Christmas as a kid and, before you ask, my memories of those times are actually universally positive. As an adult though... I just always seem to be too busy to even be aware of it, let alone to actually want to celebrate it. Now...” There being nothing more I can think of saying, I gesture for Will to raise his arms. “Come on. If you can, lift your arms for me.”

Dutifully doing as he's told, albeit both slowly and with obvious effort, Will raises his arms and patiently allows me to pull his sweater off over his head. “Thanks,” he states, watching as, doing my best to ignore how it's still holding in the heat from his body, I neatly fold the sweater up and place it on the bench under the television set. “You don't miss it? Being a part of the festive season, I mean.”

“It's not something I've ever really thought about before,” I reply as, not wanting to appear too – anxious to get him off this particular, oddly uncomfortable topic – pushy, I stand back and leave Will to fumble over undoing the buttons on his shirt on his own. “What about you, though? Seeing as you're contemplating giving up on it, I'm assuming it's something you've spent far more time thinking about than I ever had.”

“I like Christmas,” Will replies simply. “That is, I... liked Christmas. After these last few years though... I don't know. Perhaps the time has just come to be more like you and... uh... not even get my hopes up anymore.”

“The last few years have been that good, huh?” I query in a sympathetic tone as, despite this not really being a conversation I wish to be a part of, I find myself genuinely wanting to know what's caused Will to change his mind about Christmas. Mind you, this year, and better late than never I'm now conscious of today being the twenty-fourth of December, I'm fairly confident I already know the answer to, and I get it. 

Trust me. I get it.

We're stuck in a crappy motel room in Chicago on Christmas Eve and, what's more, courtesy of the terrible weather both closing the airports and making the roads a living nightmare, we're likely to remain here for the next few days. Then, as if this wasn't already bad enough, Will has busted ribs and what I imagine to soon be a scary amount of bruising from a car accident we were in this afternoon. The airports still being open then, we were en route to O'Hare to catch our flight back to D.C. when, out of nowhere, an idiot who didn't know how to drive to the conditions spun his van into our hire car and ploughed it into a tree. Will, who'd been reaching into the back seat to get his phone out of his coat pocket at the time, bore the brunt of the impact because of the awkward angle he was in. The seatbelt, while it saved him, also caused most of the damage and while, thankfully, none of his injuries are serious and the hospital didn't need to keep him in, he's still going to be sore and sorry for himself for the foreseeable future. As for me, I'm pretty much fine apart from a little bit of bruising from the airbag having done its job and know that, really, we were both lucky to walk away from the car, which was a write-off, in as good a state as we did. Even the van driver, despite having been both the cause of it and needing to remain in hospital for a couple of days at least, was fortunate enough to get out of it as well as he did and, at the end of the day I'm just grateful that it wasn't worse, that...

… Will's okay.

I...

Even though I shouldn't, and I waste a hell of a lot of time telling myself that I shouldn't even be entertaining such thoughts, I... care – far more than I have any right to – about Will and, because of this, I also find myself caring about his apparent disappointment in Christmas. I know I won't be able to do anything about it, and that I'm teetering ever closer to that damn rabbit hole simply by engaging in the subject, but I can't help it. I could have lost him today, not even as a result of a mission but because of a moron who shouldn't have been behind the wheel, and although it's not something I'm wanting to think about, it's left me feeling a little fragile.

Look, but don't touch.

Long, but internalise it. 

Maintain the all-important status quo at all costs, regardless of what the actual cost may be.

It's just...

… Safer that way.

For both of us.

I didn't listen to – cold, hard fact – Luther when he tried to warn me off trying to play happy, normal families with Julia and, not wanting to make the same, delusional mistake twice, I just have to make my peace with having Will as a friend.

Friend. Colleague.

Nothing more.

For his sake as much as my own, he can't be.

Having been burnt once myself, not to mention the untold damage my stupid selfishness did to Jules, I just have to keep telling myself that...

… It's better this way.

“Glossing over this year because, as we've already mentioned, it could have been a hell of a lot worse,” Will replies as, yawning, he shrugs out of his shirt, “last year basically sucked because you were running around indulging your OCD over The Syndicate and I was stuck playing nice with the CIA and under Hunley... Uh... Oh God! That so didn't come out right!” His eyes widening in comical dismay, he shakes his head and, after taking a deep breath to stave off laughter, picks up where he left off. “Uh... The CIA and Hunley, I... I don't really think anything more needs to be said about that, so... Moving on. The year before that I was still in a funk over Croatia and actually volunteered to remain in the office over Christmas. The year before that I was in the field. In Australia. Where the temperature was something hideous and all the images of Santa Claus seemed to have him wearing board shorts and riding a surfboard. It... Let's just say it was odd and leave it at that.”

“Not your idea of a good time at all?”

“Not even close, in fact. I...” Trailing off, Will gets unsteadily to his feet and walks over to his bag. “Given that I can't even remember when it last was that I actually got to enjoy Christmas,” he murmurs, “I think your... blissful ignorance... to the festive season is the way to go. It... It's just another day, after all.”

“What about this year?” Walking over to join Will by the second bed, I gently bat his hand away from his bag and pull back the zip. “Did you have plans? I know we're stuck here now, but perhaps you could still...”

“It doesn't matter,” he whispers, taking a step back and leaving me to ferret through his bag in search of both pyjamas and a toiletry bag on my own. “Like so many of my plans, they were only in my head, and as it's highly doubtful I would have been able to turn them into reality even if I'd tried, it... Whatever. It doesn't matter.”

“Will...” Unable to bare the tremor of wistful longing in his voice, I give up searching through his bag and, with more than a little reluctance, turn around to face him. “I'm sure...”

“It doesn't matter,” he repeats, cutting me off as, without looking at me, he pulls his bag closer and swiftly retrieves his required items. “At least this way we actually get to spend Christmas togeth...” Falling abruptly silent, Will blushes a colour not too dissimilar to the bed covers and, stepping hurriedly around me, makes a bee-line for the bathroom. “I... Shit! Sorry. Just... Sorry!” he declares, the words falling out of his mouth in a rush. “Just put it down to the painkillers making me speak out of turn and... Uh... Please. Just forget I ever said anything.”

~*~*~*~

At the risk of sounding as though I'd like to to tick the coveted title of 'Most Arrogant Man Alive' off my bucket-list, I'm not one to humour, let alone actually fall prey to, doubt. Let's face it, given my line of work and the all-too-frequent life or death situations I'm prone to encountering, I simply can't let so much as a hint of self-doubt to ever take hold as, to put it bluntly, the stakes are always just too high. Common sense, doubt, and even, in quite a few cases, logic. I pay them little to no heed because whatever it is that needs doing generally... needs doing NOW, and taking the time to – second guess myself – apply logic to the situation is simply a luxury I never seem to have.

Act first.

Then, if it worked, relegate it to history and don't think about it later.

If it didn't? Well. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that, I just have to pick myself up and try again.

I do what I do because someone has to and, hey, seeing as I'm still here, it seems to work.

I don't... do... doubt, and the reason I don't do it is because I can't.

Doubt, it...

It's unfamiliar to me.

Take that glorious fuck up of my marriage for example. Despite Luther's – obvious doubt – wise words of counsel, I never, not once, paused to pay any attention to them. Flush, if not with actual love then with the idea of settling down and 'playing house', I was confident... Fuck. Make that, I was... convinced... that everything would be just fucking peachy and that we'd live happily after. I'd made my mind up, therefore failure was not an option.

Only...

It did fail.

Of course it did.

I – over-reached – allowed myself to get caught up in the heat of the moment and things went spectacularly to shit.

Mistakes happen.

Shit happens.

Taking my failure as a husband on board, I acknowledged the error of my ways, accepted that relationships were clearly not for me, and went on my blinkered way.

Done, dusted, and still entirely doubt free.

So, again... Doubt. It's just a foreign concept to me. One that I neither see the point of, nor have the time for.

I don't get it.

I don't want to get it.

Yet right now it's fucking eating me alive.

What have I done?

Should I take everything down?

Just... What the fuck was I even thinking?

If I press ahead, what's he going to think?

It's stupid.

I'm stupid.

Stupid, but... Good intentioned, right?

I never should have...

It's... just a nice gesture, that's all.

A nice gesture done in the spur-of-the-moment that... I never should have indulged in.

What if...

… He likes it?

What if...

… It cracks open the seal, the one we've both been doing our best to avoid for months? The one Will himself inadvertently touched on before, having realised the error of his ways, bolting for the sanctuary of the bathroom...

“At least this way we actually get to spend Christmas togeth...”

He...

He went there.

Dear God, he actually went there. Gave voice to the unspoken and touched on the seal, the one that just has to be better off left intact and which is all that stands between arguably harmless longing and the... threat... of reality. Although he tried to brush if off by putting it, his faux pas, down to the strong painkillers he was on, the... damage... had already been done. The truth, which I'd suspected but refused to acknowledge, was out.

He had feelings for me.

William Brandt, who I was focussed on keeping at arm's length, cared for me.

Perhaps, carpe diem and all that, we should have just embraced the opening and been done with it. Get it out of systems before putting it behind us and moving on, if you like. I'm thinking now, with the benefit of hindsight, that it probably would have been the best way to go. I mean, surely it would have to have been less awkward than... this. The mess of awkwardness and doubt that we're now inhabiting. 

Make that...

I'm inhabiting.

Will, no doubt assisted nicely by the sleeping pills the doctor insisted he take to get a good night's rest, is sound asleep in his bed, while I'm sitting here, still dressed and on top of the bedding, on mine and having some sort of unfamiliar – attack of the vapours – panic attack. 

Just...

Honestly. What the fuck was I thinking?

From leaving the room the second the bathroom door closed to my hare-brained attempt to make things 'right'. I just don't know what possessed me.

If I'd stayed, we could have both pretended it never happened. Easy. Will would have come out of the bathroom in due course and, after making sure he was settled in bed, I could have had a shower before going to bed myself. Again. Easy. No harm, no foul. Life, with all its secrets and excuses, would have just gone on.

But, no. Instead of staying, I ran. I took Will's blurted out confession and, startled by the possibility, took off with my tail between my legs and spent a couple of hours walking aimlessly around outside in the freezing cold.

And here I now am.

Back. Clueless. And riddled with doubt.

Wearily accepting that my going nowhere fast thoughts aren't achieving a damn thing and that I may as well try to get some sleep, I climb silently off the bed and have just pulled my sweater off when – the unthinkable happens – Will throws back his bedding and, seemingly entirely on autopilot, shuffles into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. Startled by this unexpected opportunity to put my – stupid – plan into action far earlier than anticipated, I stare at the small gleam of light coming from beneath the bathroom door and dither over what to do.

Do I, or don't I?

Seize the damn moment and go for it, or play dead and spend the rest of the night agonising over what to do?

Make a stand, or continue to – both figuratively and literally – hide?

Accept...

… Or Deny?

I just...

Fuck me. If this is what doubt feels like, I can see now why I've made it my life's work to suppress it.

Although I'm still no closer to reaching an actual decision when the bathroom door opens and Will walks back into the room, something inside of me just... snaps... at the sight of him, his hair all ruffled by the pillow and so very, very... real, and...

I do it.

I reach out without hesitation and flick the switch.

No doubt or second thoughts, just...

For Will.

And maybe, just maybe..

… For me as well.

The fairy lights, both bright white and multi-coloured, that I'd carefully strung around the room while Will had slept on, oblivious to the frantic decorating attempts going on around him, blinking immediately into life catching him off guard, he comes to a sudden stop by the foot of his bed and, with obvious surprise, blinks a few times himself. “Ethan?” he murmurs cautiously. “Uh... Is that you?”

“No. You're not dreaming,” I reply softly as I walk around my bed and position myself in front of it. “As there's nothing else really to say... Uh... Merry Christmas.”

“But...” Looking far from convinced that it's actually real and he isn't simply dreaming it, Will frowns slightly and gestures around at the lights. “How? I...”

“Taking pity on me when I asked him where I might be able to buy decorations at... uh... one AM on Christmas morning, the enterprising clerk on the reception desk told me that for a fifty I could help myself to the motel's left overs,” I explain with both a tentative grin and a shrug. “I... I know it's not much, and that it doesn't make up for having to spend Christmas in a...”

“But... Why?” Will interrupts as, finally looking as though he's come to terms with the fact that, why, yes, he actually is awake, he takes a hesitant step closer and locks his wide-eyed, hopeful gaze on mine. “Ethan...”

“I...” Here goes nothing. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the damn truth... and to hell with the consequences. “I hoped it would make you smile,” I respond quietly as, to my great relief, he does just that, “and because... Uh... I wanted a way to show that you should never feel as though you have to give up on anything. Not Christmas, not... anything...”

“Not... Anything?” Will echoes, his face lighting up in the most amazingly brilliant smile as he closes the distance separating us and, after only a moment's hesitation, places his hands warmly on my hips.

“Not anything,” I repeat, licking my suddenly dry lips as the enormity of the moment washes over me. The seal... Will may have lifted the edge, but I think it's fair to say I've just ripped it clean off. “Will... I... I've fought this, and I'm still far from convinced there's any chance it'll work, but...

“I accept,” Will states somewhat apropos of nothing as he cups his left hand warmly around my cheek and gently presses his chest against mine as my arms instinctively slide around his back to keep him in place. “That... I accept. That's all you need to know.”

“But... I don't...”

“As they're something you always give your all to and never fail at,” Will whispers, relaxing into my embrace, “all you need to do is view this... Us... Whatever it is we're doing, and wherever it is that it might lead us, you just need to view it as a mission and...”

“Both believe in it, and work at it,” I finish, marvelling at the succinct way Will has managed to break through all my so-called logic and reasons for not having done this sooner. Don't doubt it, or over think it, just... Go for it. “You... Has anyone ever told you that you've got an incredible way with words?”

“Well, you know, as I have no intention of willingly, or, for that matter... gleefully... throwing myself out of a skyscraper any time soon, one of us has to be the brains of this partnership,” Will retorts with a grin as he gently strokes his fingers down the side of my face. “Just... Merry Christmas, Ethan,” he adds, brushing his lips across mine for a feather light kiss. “Merry Christmas, and... Thank you. For the lights, for trying, and... for proving, I suspect as much to yourself as to me, that Christmas miracles really do happen...”

~ end ~


End file.
